NC makes move to improve health cost transparency

Try to find out how much a North Carolina hospital charges for a procedure or what an MRI scan might cost at your neighborhood emergency department, and chances are you'll end up frustrated. That's due in part to the potentially wide variability of the price tag, depending on who is paying. But beginning next year, North Carolinians should have more insight into what their hospital bill might be before care is delivered. Passed last week in the waning days of this year's legislative session, the Health Care Cost Reduction and Transparency Act of 2013, or House Bill 834, will create an online database of what hospitals are paid, on average, for the 100 treatments they perform most frequently.